Word of Salvation – Vol. 38 No. 10 – March 1993

 

We Need God

 

Sermon by Rev. W. Wiersma on Lord’s Day 8

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

The one thing that stands out as I read the questions and answers of LD 8 is: how much we really depend on God.

God is shown to be the Giver of all the life we have and ever will have.
God is our Creator.
God is our Redeemer or Rescuer.
God is our Sanctifier, the One who makes us holy,
   the One who enables us to love God
     and to love our neighbour according to God’s will.

All the life we have as God’s creatures and as saved sinners is a gift from God.

And when you think about it, is this not the whole point of the Bible’s revelation of God the Triune Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

The message of Scripture concerning God is that God in all his glorious fullness is involved in our existence and God in all his fullness is involved in our salvation.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit are concerned for us.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit love us.

Is that not the point the Catechism makes in LD 7 when it speaks of the Gospel which is summarised in the Apostles’ Creed?

The Catechism there says, ‘All that is promised in the Gospel is summarised in the articles of the Christian faith.’  I have asked myself what promise is to be found in the Apostles’ Creed.

The answer is to be found in this that the promise of the Gospel has to do with God, with what God is and what God has determined and promised to do.

The word ‘promise’ suggests that we should look to God who has made the promise.  And we should look to see how He keeps his word and carries out his promises.  That is the Gospel.  The Gospel is the good news that God promises us something.  God offers us a tremendous benefit.  God is willing to take care of us.  God has provided and will provide for all our needs.

Our existence and our future depend entirely on God’s willingness to do that.

Our salvation is entirely a matter of God doing what He has promised.

This gives us great reason for humility.  Is it not humbling to have to confess that our existence, our future, depend entirely on God doing what He has promised?

Naturally, we would like to think that we can contribute something to our salvation.  That we, somehow, can give ourselves a bit of life.

But no, we are reminded by the Catechism that we are completely dependent on God and upon God’s grace and faithfulness for life and for godliness.

This is therefore also a great reason why we should pray.  Because when we hear about God’s promises, we may turn to God and may ask God to do what He has promised to do.  You might say, prayer is keeping God to his promises.

Prayer is an appeal to God’s promises.  Isn’t that a wonderful reason for confidence in prayer; a wonderful assurance of getting answers?

As Jesus said, If you ask anything in my name I will do it.

If you ask according to God’s promises, you are bound to receive what you ask for.

And it strikes me, particularly as I read the Gospel of John, how much the Lord Jesus encourages his disciples to depend on him, and on his authority and ability to act on behalf of God.  Ask, He says, and I will do it.  Ask and you will receive.  Claim what God promises you.

This is also a great cause for rejoicing and thanksgiving.  Look at what God is accomplishing in the lives of sinners.

Look at what God is doing in the lives of his children.  It is marvellous to see what God does for those whom He brings to Jesus.

I recently read how God’s grace and Spirit have cracked some of the toughest gang-members in this country.  God is able to bring sworn enemies together at the foot of the Cross.  And He brings them to the point where they stand next to each other and together pray for a fellow believer.  I say, isn’t it marvellous what God in his grace can do?  Those under his saving influence willingly submit themselves to the lordship of Christ.  And they are no longer ruled by the demands of their peers but they are ruled by the commands of the Lord Jesus.

I see the grace of God in the Christian who goes to his brother, whom he has offended, and talks to him and offers his apologies.

You can see the evidence of that same grace in the sister who spends much of her time visiting the lonely or helping the distressed.

I think of the fullness of God and of the greatness of his love expressed in the doctrine of the Trinity as more a matter for faith and worship than for logical analysis and understanding.  It is more a matter for prayer and praise than for discussion.

Let us face it, the Trinity, God in his fullness, is a mystery to us.  A mystery both in the sense that it is something which was hidden but which God has made known through Jesus Christ.  That is the New Testament understanding of what a mystery is.  Something hidden in the past, in the Old Testament, made known in the New Testament.  But the Trinity is also a mystery in the sense that it is actually beyond our understanding.

It was interesting to read that the Western part of the Christian Church has tended to be far more intellectual about the Triune God than the Eastern part is.

For instance, Ursinus, one of the authors of the Catechism, mentions in his comments on this Lord’s Day about ten philosophical arguments for the existence of God.  (In other words, why theologians and philosophers think God should be Triune.)  In this he followed the lead given by men like Thomas Aquinas.

Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology parades a number of rational arguments for the necessity of the Trinity.  As if there is a logical explanation for everything!  The fact of the whole matter is that no one understands the Trinity.  No one can understand how God can be three persons in one being.  The reason for our inability to understand God is that God is so much greater than we are.  As someone has said, “The moment we could understand God in all his fullness, that moment God would be as small as we are.’

We believe in God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit because the Bible reveals the Father to be God, the Son to be God and the Holy Spirit to be God.

And seeing that the Scriptures also make it very clear that there is only one God, the church has begun to talk about the triune God.  One God in three persons, or subsistences.

But no one really understands God; no one really understands the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And we must maintain the mystery.  We must not pretend to know what cannot be known or understood.

So the church should be hesitant about making pronouncements and decisions about God, which cannot be substantiated from Scripture.

I am thinking here of the split that has occurred between the Roman and Eastern Orthodox sides of the Christian church.  One of the differences that led to that split between the Orthodox and the Romans, in 1054, was over the correctness or otherwise of the Nicene Creed as we have it, regarding the Holy Spirit.  Our western version of this creed says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.  The Eastern Orthodox church maintains that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father.

Now, I can almost hear some of you thinking, “So what?”  How does that affect us?

But I mention it because this controversy split the church, split the communion of the church, the universal body of Christ.

For the West it was a matter of maintaining that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all equally God.  Equal in rank, equal in importance.  The Father is fully God, the Son is fully God, the Holy Spirit is fully God.

For the East it was far more a question of maintaining and emphasising the personality of God.  God is a God who is personal.  God is a God who cares.

My sympathies lie with the Eastern church on this question.  We are to be more interested in the heart of God than in speculating about God’s ontological composition.

We should not allow the philosophies of this world, or of Christians for that matter, to dictate our understanding of the Scriptures.  For there is no philosophy which can adequately describe or contain God’s revelation of Himself.  There is no system of human thought into which God can be neatly and comfortably fitted.  Whenever we are dealing with God we will always have to be willing to be corrected.  God can never be neatly fitted into any system which we care to make.

The church, and the individual believer, should be careful that they never think, ‘Now I know it all, now I’ve got it all completely defined.  And now I am acceptable to God on the basis that I know it.’  That’s been the emphasis in the western church, knowing it.  But the emphasis in the Scriptures is knowing HIM.

The question is not how much you can explain about God, but the question is, how much do you believe in God?  How much do you trust God?  How much do you take God at his word?  How much do you follow God?  That’s the issue.

No philosophy can ever adequately describe God.

So we should not force the Word of God to fit our systems, even our theological systems.

You see, one verse which played a crucial role in the western understanding of the Trinity was John 15:26 where the Lord Jesus said to his disciples before He left them for heaven, ‘when the Helper comes, whom I will send from the Father, that is the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness to me.’

The West says: ‘See, the Son sends the Holy Spirit, which means the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father.’  But John 15:26 is not a definition or an explanation of the Trinity at all.  It is rather an explanation of what Jesus our Mediator and Redeemer, would do once He was at the right hand of God in glory.

In 14:16 we read Jesus saying, ‘And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper that He may be with you forever.’

Jesus is talking about what He will do as our Mediator and Representative as a result of the sacrifice He would bring on the Cross.  So the point is, that because of his obedience Jesus would receive the right to ask the Father to pour out his Spirit upon the church.  Because of his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus has earned for his people the right of God’s presence and power.  That’s what this text is about.

Let me say that again.  Because of his sacrifice on the cross, because of His obedience on our behalf, Jesus has earned for us the right to God’s presence and power.

And so Jesus, because of His obedience, is able to send the Holy Spirit to us, by asking the Father: ‘Father, please give your Spirit to my people, so that the Spirit may dwell in their hearts and work in them to will and to do what is pleasing to you; to comfort them, to help them, to lead them in their Christian life, to keep them in the faith and to help them to understand and to remember what I have taught them.’

So what God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit do for us is all based on what Christ (the God-man) has suffered for us.  Which is another way of saying that Christ has met and Christ has fulfilled all the conditions for God to keep his promises.  Do you understand that?

Promises are often conditional; I will do this if you do that.  God’s promises are also conditional; I will do this if you do that.  And Jesus has done that, exactly as the Father has asked him to.  He has fulfilled and met all the conditions for God to keep his promises.

Believing in Jesus we can be sure that God will give us, and do for us, all He has promised to those who trust in him, because Jesus has trusted in him perfectly.  Jesus has met all the conditions on our behalf.

So it is my prayer for you, and for myself, that we may learn to rely upon this God more and more, so that more and more we see what He does for his children who have been bought by the blood of Jesus, His Son.

AMEN